The Holocaust Study Tour is an educational tour that motivates and challenges students to rethink one of the most horrific events in history. Traveling through Germany, Czech Republic, and Poland, students make meaningful cultural connections to the people and nations they visit.
Read below to learn more about the trip and it's purpose.
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NMHS
One Snyder Circle
New Milford, New Jersey 07646

Monday, April 4, 2016

Day 2 - Berlin, Germany

We began our day at the Brandenburg Gate, a powerful
symbol of the Cold War and the
divisionof Berlin into communist East
Berlin and democratic West Berlin and how for years the world’s attention was
focused on what happened here and the potential threat of a nuclear war.Olaf then told us about the events in 1989
and the reaction of the people of Berlin – in the West and the East – to the
wall coming down.

From there we walked across the street to the Memorial
to the Sinti Roma dedicated in 2012 and commemorating the murder of an
estimated 500,00 Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis in what the Roma
[Gypsies] call the Porjamos (The
Devouring).The memorial was designed
by an Israeli artist, Dani Karavan, and has a round reflecting pool around
which is written the poem “Auschwitz” by Roma author Santino Spinelli.Surrounding the pool arebroken stone slabs on which are carved the
names of concentration camps and ghettos in which the Sinti Roma were
inmates.In the center of the pool is a
triangle on which rests a single flower.Each day the platform is lowered below the surface and then is raised
with a fresh flower.

Mr. Barmore spoke of the complexity of the Nazi racial
ideology.He told us that Gypsies,
originally from India, are actually Aryans, but that didn’t mesh with the Nazi
view of Aryan supremacy that they were trying to promote, so their persecution
of the Gypsy population was pursued on a sociological rather than racial basis.

Next we went into the Reichstag Domefrom which we could see wonderful panoramic
views of the city of Berlin and we able to identify many landmarks we had
already visited.

Our next stop would be the Jewish Museum of Berlin,
designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, whichfocused on 2,000 years of
German-Jewish history. Mr. Barmore then
took us through the permanent exhibition.First, he talked to us about the Jewish perspective until
modernity.Jews, he said, lived in Erez
Israel until they were exiled by God [the Romans being merely a tool of God]
for their sins.Jews would then be
dealing with God, keeping the law, living according to the Torah, until God saw
fit to return them to their home.Thus
there developed a pattern of life, grounded in the Torah, an open account with
God, which kept the Jews separate from the Christian society around them.On the practical side, they needed to earn a
living, often engaging in commerce.The
Christianswere also ambivalent towards
the Jews, at best they were tolerated.They had often been invited by the king to collect taxes or maintain
records, were property of a king, and as such, were given certain privileges
and were protected by him.Another
important and enduring feature of Jewish civilization is that Jews were
literate and had always been literate.From the age of 3, Jewish boys began to learn to read so that they could
study the Torah.Every Jewish male was
literate and many Jewish women.In
contrast, the average European citizen began to be literate from the beginning
of the 20th century when education began to be mandated.

Westopped before
two marble statues - images traditionally found outside churches in medieval
times, such as Notre Dame in Paris.The
statue on the left, beautiful and sighted, represented the Church and the
blindfolded statue on the right represented the synagogue, which was unable to
see the truth.He said that no one can
understand the Holocaust without understanding the roots of Christian
antisemitism.Nazi ideology cannot be
disconnected from Christian antisemitism , and yet Christian antisemitism would
never have committed genocide on the Jews.

We continued through the museum as Mr. Barmore
discussed the rise of the German Jewish community into the middle class, their
desire to become assimilated into German society.German Jews had what Mr. Barmore called a
“one-sided love affair.”They wanted to
be German, but the outside world would never accept them as such;to most Germans, Jews could never be German.

In another empty space in the building, there was an
exhibit by the Israeli artist, Menashe Kadishman, who called his installation
“Fallen Leaves”, dedicating the more than 10,000 metal faces covering the
floor, to all innocent victims of war and violence.As the students walked through the void,
stepping on the metal faces which created a cacophony of clanking, they
reflected on the significance of this modern memorial as well as their level of
comfort at walking through it.

After lunch we continued our day at the museum of Otto
Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind.In this factory, students heard from Olaf
about the blind and deaf employees who made brooms and brushes for the war
effort.Otto Weidt protected his Jewish
employees as well as a Jewish family of four which hid in a secret room built
behind a secret wardrobe closet.After
eight months of hiding, the family was betrayed and deported to Auschwitz,
where they were all murdered.Olaf
explained how Otto Weidt helped one employee, Inge Deutschkron, who is the
survivor who returned to Berlin after the war and memorialized the rescue
efforts of Otto Weidt by single-handedly creating this museum.

Our last stop today was at a memorial to one of the
lesser known events of the Holocaust.In
February 1943 a group of German Aryan women stood in front of the building at
Rosenstrasse 2-4 which was serving as a detention center.These women were married to Jewish men who
had been rounded up to be deported.For
one week the women stood in front of the building, chanting “We want our
husbands back!”The Germans set up
machine guns, threatening to fire on them, but the women would not back
down.Finally it was the Nazis who
relented, releasing all their husbands.

This demonstrated, Mr. Barmore said, how even
dictatorships cannot totally disregard public opinion and needs to be mindful
as to what actions might be negatively viewed by the population.It was also noted that there were many
non-Jewish women across Europe, married to Jewish men, but this type of
resistance only took place here, adding to the complexity of the study of the
Holocaust and human behavior.

We returned to the hotel to relax and get ready for
dinner -tonight at the Augustiner Brau
in the Gendarmenmarkt.

To learn of the statues, one for Christianity and its anti semitism, and one for Judaism and its blindness was really interesting, especially as the two religions are so closely linked. I really liked the story behind the women memorial as well. Even in a time of fear and desperation, they did not give up hope and stood up for themselves when no one else would.

Thank you so much for sharing all yiur incredible knowledge and experiences. What incredible and powerful stories and pictures you are sharing. I feel very powerful emotions reading the blog and following your journey.

Knowing how many memorials are dedicated to the commemoration of the murder of the Jews and Roma is extraordinary. Also, I loved hearing about the people who hid and protected Jewish people and families at the risk of their own lives. These people, such as Otto Weidt, are symbolic and prove that some were willing to do "unlawful" actions in order to follow their beliefs and do what they know is right.

It's amazing to see all the fascinating places you guys are touring. It's really interesting to learn more about how the Holocaust is remembered and the victims are honored through art. All the different statues and memorials I'm reading about sound beautiful and really unique. Reading about how German Jews just wanted to fit in but non-Jewish Germans would never see them the same made me wonder what modern day Germans think about German Jews or any other German minority? I also wanted to know how diverse modern day Germany is?

Wow! "Fallen Leaves" is absolutely breathtaking. I can only imagine the connection one feels to the victims when walking across the faces. Perhaps a sense of guilt--meant to represent the guilt from the Holocaust? I would be very interested in learning more about this specific piece, and the artist who created it. I never knew about Rosenstrasse 2-4; what an interesting monument..certainly something I'd never thought of before. The trip looks wonderful in every sense--enjoy!!!

Not having looked into these memorials myself, this blog is extremely informative and it's really cool to learn from your trip. Though this has already been said, the "fallen leaves" monument is by far in my opinion the most impactful. Stepping over the metal faces and hearing the sounds of your shoes over them must create a feeling of pity and sympathy for the victims unlike any other. There are certainly some very interesting experiences you guys have on that trip and i hope you are all impacted my the weight and meaning behind the history and monuments.